


Sephiroth Work Force

by KIKarchived (Krystalicekitsu)



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Co-workers, Fast Food, Gen, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-09-14
Updated: 2009-09-14
Packaged: 2018-02-23 14:05:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2550266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Krystalicekitsu/pseuds/KIKarchived
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It wouldn't be too bad, right? He’d trained teenagers to fight and kill things, fought a war, and brought a nation-well two really- to their knees almost single-handedly.</p><p>But he hadn't counted on the <i>work</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sephiroth Work Force

“Alright, Sephiroth,” the ex-General was seated at staring up nervously at one rough-and-tumble pilot and a smirking ninja. Cloud, his only _real_ support, was banished behind them due to his unofficial bias in the matter, “We’ve decided!”

One silver eyebrow rose delicately; he was nervous as hell but he’d be damned if he let _them_ know that.

Cid Highwind snorted in distaste at that, “We’ve decided how to test your ‘sanity’.” The pilot made a very immature face and attempted a Cloud-voice that really only turned out whinny. It really was amazing that the pilot got along so well with everybody. Er, rather, that they didn’t kill him long before this.

“Yes?” this entire discussion thing was going much too slow for him; it’s like they were trying to intimidate him or something, except they really didn’t know how to do it. He had gotten his first, and only, assassination attempt when he hit the rank of General at fifteen and was finally allowed in Shinra staff meetings. Nothing was as scary as Shinra internal politics. Except maybe a mad Cloud.

The ninja’s smirk grew wider and Highwind began the short, fast puffs of his cig that meant he was enjoying himself way too much, “Heh, ya gotta work!”

* * *

Sephiroth sighed. If he had known _this_ was what they meant by ‘work’ he would have never agreed. The conditions were simple; work for three months, without killing anyone or breaking anything, and they would consider him sane enough to ‘date’ their leader (although, many thought that Cloud was insane himself for wanting to date the ex-General, no matter that they loved each other in the past, and a few, like Tifa and Barrette, refused to think of it as ‘dating’; more like ‘sharing a room in a friendly-and-entirely-platonic way’).

It wouldn’t be too bad, right? I mean, he’d trained teenagers to fight and kill things, fought a war, and brought a nation-well two really- to their knees almost single-handedly.

But he hadn’t counted on the _work_.

“I want a cheeseburger without cheese.”

He pressed a button on the till, “56 cents, please.”

The lady, who was perhaps a little too out-of-shape to be ordering anything from Dairy Queen and seemed to think more was better was a motto with jewelry, frowned, “That’s not right. The cheeseburger up there is 70 cents. I want a cheeseburger, no cheese, not whatever you’re trying to give me.” She pushed up her 60s-esque glasses and tried to lean over the counter that she only topped by about a foot and a half.

“Ma’am, a cheeseburger without cheese is a hamburger. And a hamburger is 56 cents. Please.” He held out his hand for the change due.

She huffed, “I don’t want a hamburger. I want a cheeseburger without cheese.”

“That’s a hamburger.”

“I don’t want a hamburger. I want a cheeseburger, but no cheese.”

“A cheeseburger without cheese is just a hamburger, ma’am.”

She sighed, “Can I talk with your manager?”

He blinked, sighed, and turned to drive through where his manager, Tamlyn, was talking with the window person, “Tam? Can you come here, please?”

A raised finger indicated she was busy.

Sephiroth turned back to the lady in resignation, noticing with horror that her shirt was slipping down and two er- um- _things_ were attempting to escape from it. He quickly stared at the ceiling, “She’ll be here in just a moment. Is there anything else I can get you in the mean time?”

“No, that’s alright dear,” she patted his hand where it rested on the counter top, “You seem to be having problems so I’ll let you take a break.”

His eye twitched.

* * *

“Seph! Oi! New guy!”

The yell startled him which resulted in a large bump on the back of his head as he’d tried to go _through_ the counter he was ducked under, instead of _around_. He grumbled and let the box of spoons he was stocking drop back down to the floor, “What?”

Darien, the night shift’s cook was standing in the drive/kitchen entry way with his hands on his hips, “What’d you do with my patty pans?”

Sephiroth blinked, “Nothing. I’m closing counter tonight.” He indicated with a sweep of his hand that he was indeed doing just that. He had already stocked the blizzard mixes, the fruit toppings, the moo-late flavors, the arctic rush flavors, taken a tub of strawberries out to thaw and was in the process of stocking the grey trays that held the spoons, ketchup packets, salt and pepper packets and straws when his head had got it’s new feature.

Darien shook his mullet-ed head, “No, man, my patty pans were on the back table before you stocked the syrups and now they’re gone. Gone, man.”

“I have no idea. Missy was back there earlier; ask her.”

“Missy?!” the cook looked equally offended and flabbergasted, “Missy’s pregnant! She’s not going to work!”

Sephiroth barely restrained himself from rolling his eyes, “That doesn’t mean she can’t pass something to someone.”

Darien narrowed his eyes, “Like you?”

Sephiroth started counting to ten.

* * *

Two and a half months. He was almost done. Two and a half months and four hours. Just a _little bit_ more. Two and a half months and four hours and 23 minutes. A little ways to go and he would be done and he could quit and still get his Cloud. Again.

They had put him on drive-through a little bit after his fourth week because, apparently, he was intimidating to those customers coming in who were just a little bit shy (he had smirked when they told him this; _he still had it!_ ). Drive, they reasoned, would be perfect for him, because he only ever had to physically interact with them when they pulled up, and only then to take their money, and give them change. The runner did all the rest.

Unless it was after a game. Like it was that night.

For some reason, despite a Taco Bell and a Denny’s right around the corner, game nights of the local high school football team seemed to inspire the need for fast food in the fans. After a game, they would come in flocks, in droves, in hordes to get food.

Equally unfathomable is why the store manager never felt it valuable to incorporate game nights into the scheduling of personnel. So that night it was only Sephiroth, Nathan, Max and Kasey to handle the rush.

Sephiroth on drive, and Max, his runner where pushed to the limit to get the orders out the window before the timer hit five minutes, and they were so busy ( _What the fuck is with football fans and blizzards, damnit_. Sephiroth snarled to himself for the _n_ th time) that he was backing up his own runner.

He ran through the motions in super-speed: fill up the small cup, then the large cup and the three medium cups with soft serve, stop and dash over to grill’s pass-through to pick up the last of the waiting order and pass out the Ultimate and two large onion rings, put collars on all five cups (“Oops, sorry Max, I used them all”), fill two of the three medium cups with cookie dough toppings, the last medium with strawberries and cheesecake chunks, fill the large with strawberries and chocolate chunks for chocolate covered strawberries, the small gets the last of the banana's (he yelled for the cook, Nathan, to pass up more), cream pie powder and pie crust pieces. He blends the three mediums in rapid succession, closing one eye when a flying piece of strawberry comes dangerously close to costing him his vision for the night, and puts lids on all three, one after the other. 

Stacking them made it easier to dodge and duck his way through the flying hands and ice cream where he deposited them on the counter next to his till and began loading them into a drink carrier. 

If he has time- oh, wait, here’s the spare second, he wipes the strawberry chunk from his eyelid, sure that there’s some in his hair somewhere. He takes the man’s card, slides it through and charges him for the blizzards, handing out the Visa and a receipt before dodging back through people to get the last two blizzards.

He once again manages to get strawberry all over his face and uniform (the shields to the blizzard machines having fallen off long ago) and caps the chocolate covered strawberry blizzard before adding the finishing touch- a huge dollop of whip crème- to the banana cream pie, adding a dome lid and dashing back through the fray to deliver them safe and sound to the drink carrier and then the man’s hands before pressing ‘SERVE’. He notes with no small amount of satisfaction that he got the order out with only 3 minutes and fifty nine seconds on the order time.

That annoying ‘boop/beep’ noise let him know that he had another deadline to beat, “Hello, thank you for choosing Dairy Queen. My name is Sephiroth and I will be with you in just a moment.”

He checked the order coming up. Good; all grill items. But one shake and a drink. A scoop of ice with five cubes and he pressed the ‘L’ button under the Mt. Dew before hurrying off to check on the BBQ chicken basket and the mushroom Swiss burger and then off to the shake machine to- damnit! The shake machine’s not working again. The elite swordsman growled in frustration. No choice; he filled almost all of the large cup with ice cream and then finished the distance with chocolate syrup and milk, before heading over to the shake machine, which refused to spit up the shake mix but still agreed to blend things, and mixes in all his toppings, were he managed, as usual, to get it all over his hands.

A harsh sigh of frustration and resignation; he doesn’t even notice how dirty he gets anymore. Nanaki, his permanent roommate (Sephiroth sneered, _babysitter_ ), is the one who reminds him by eloquently wrinkling his muzzle in distaste when he comes home smelling of soft-serve mix and chocolate sauce.

He wiped the shake from the side of the cup, handed it out in a drink carrier with the Mt Dew and nodded to Max who has the other part of the order and attends to those waiting, “Sorry about the wait. How can I help you today?”

“Yeah, I’ll get the number…uh…how about a number nine? But I want onion rings- no! A side salad instead. And um… can I get a medium blizzard instead of the drink?”

“Of course you can.”

“Oh, alrighty then, I’ll have a Butterfinger.”

“Okay, what size?”

“A Butterfinger.”

“Yes, sir, but what size?”

“A blizzard with Butterfinger in it.”

“Yes, but what _size_ blizzard?”

“A freakin blizzard with Butterfinger chunks, alright?!”

“How. Big?”

“Butterfinger!”

“Yes! SIZE?”

“I’ve already told you ten times!! BUTTERFINGER!”

“Sir,” he really should have stopped before he got fired, but he didn’t want to. “I realize you want a freaking Butterfinger blizzard.”

“Then what’s the fuckin problem?!”

“You didn’t tell me what **_size_** you want your Butterfinger blizzard.”

“Oh, I didn’t? Sorry!”

“It’s alright, sir.” He was fairly certain the edges of the till were dented, more than likely cracked and he had to grind his teeth to stop from ripping his hair out and using it to strangle the unfortunate soul on the other end of the ordering box.

“Ok! And can I get lots of ketchup? Thanks!”

There was the sound of an engine accelerating, “Sir!”

He sighed and passed the order on through to kitchen, “Chicken burger, side salad, please.”

The man pulled up in a bright red sports car, the type that you would often find the rich Plateside heirs driving. He passed a twenty through the window, some rock/rap song blaring so loud that the swordsman could feel it in his bones.

“Sir,” Sephiroth tried again, “what size blizzard did you want?”

“Huh?” the man looked at him confusedly, “I wanted a Coke.”

Sephiroth’s eye twitched again. Man, he’d have to have someone look at that.

“Is Pepsi okay?”

“No, just a medium.”

Both eyes twitched. Maybe he was coming down with something.

* * *

It was late. 

He was tired. 

He still had to stock the dry toppings. 

But the freezer was ridiculously full. 

The piles and crates and crates of 200lb+ burgers and toppings were, of course, stacked precariously across from the opened toppings he had to get to. And it also happened that Darien, the night-shift cook was just-this-side of intolerably clumsy. So it came as no real surprise to the swordsman that when Darien exited and shut the door, he bumped and turned the light off. But not before he bumped the aforementioned precariously-balanced ridiculously-over-weight boxes. Which proceeded to fall on the legend.

Being the mako/Jenova-enhanced being that he was, the crates and boxes didn’t hurt him. But he also, drained from working not one, not two, not even three but _seven_ back to back closing shifts couldn’t lift the obtrusions. And he couldn’t even call for help, seeing as how the closing shift’s motto was ‘The Louder the Better!’ And they applied this to everything from banter… to music. Which he could barely hear through the thick steel walls.

Curses were all he could think that would augment the music. And curse he did, loud, long and unrestrained. The prim and prissy ex-General kept cussing until his knowledge of insults, and his voice, ran out.

He sighed, his breath coming out in white puffs. It was going to be a long, cold, uncomfortable, sleepless night.

* * *

A thin sliver of light broke through the darkness, startling him awake and blinding him at the same time.

“Sephiroth?” it was Jamie, the day manager, “What are you doing here? You don’t start till seven.”

That was it. The last straw on the chocobo’s back. The chocobo was broke. Completely snapped in two. Maybe three pieces. And the chocobo was _pissed_.  
“ **AAAAAAAAAAARGH**!!”

* * *

Sephiroth was lounging in his favorite chair from among Cloud’s assorted bachelor material. He was thinking that maybe they should make the blond’s mismatched not-so-set set of recliners a true, matching, non-bachelor set of recliners, when said blond walked in with the mail a strange look on his face as he perused over a letter. Assorted bills and offers were discarded to the small coffee table that only had two of its original three panes of glass ( _new coffee table, too_. He contemplated getting a dining set to go with).

Cloud looked up at him and blinked unreadably before looking back down to the letter in his hands then, slowly back up to his taller lover with a look. The look that said, _what did you do?_ with subtextual glares written all over it.

Sephiroth shrunk in his seat.

Nanaki, still assigned to babysit the cat-eyed warrior, glanced over to see a seriously pissed Cloud and a cowering Seph and knew that it was time to slink away quietly.

He managed to get all but his tail out the door before the unavoidable started. He mentally patted himself on the back at the feat.

“…”

“Uh… _ahem_ …h-hi,…Cloud…”

“Sephiroth.”

“*gulp*”

“…”

 

“I-it isn’t as bad as they make it seem…”

Oh yes. Things were bad. The general was _squeaking_.

“Really.”

“s-see it wasn’t _really_ my faul-“

“SEPHIROTH! YOU TORE DOWN TWO _WALLS_!!!!”

“e-eheh, t-technically, i-it…was one and a half…” the last half of the sentence was so quiet, even with his superior hearing the lion-wolf had to strain to pick it up.

“YOU TORE THEM **_DOWN!!!_** ”

“/strangled gulp/!”

Nanaki peaked in to make sure that the savior of the world wasn’t again killing his idol, and vaguely wondered if the others of the group would mind too much if Cloud _did_ kill him. Luckily, however, the blonde wasn’t choking the taller, just standing over him with burning eyes and a nearly disintegrated letter. Sephiroth was buried as far into the recliner he had claimed as he could possibly go.

“NOW WHAT???!”

“ah… I-I quit?”

Cloud’s eye twitched. Apparently it was contagious.

* * *

Even though Sephiroth was still a full two weeks shy of the three-month goal, he was still allowed to date Cloud. Apparently, the test was to see if he would fit in with the other crazy people who worked at Dairy Queen. And he had failed, so apparently he wasn’t so crazy. And therefore, eligible to date Gaia’s Savior.

“I’m warnin ya, though. I hear one moan outta either’a ya, n’ you’ll be outta here quicker n’ you can say ‘blizzard’!” Cid was none too keen on the idea of living next to the pair.

Yuffie, on the other hand dropped by a suspicious amount, and always with a camera. Sephiroth was beginning to have suspicions of a most disturbing nature.

Dairy Queen kept his last check, nearly 20’000 gil, to cover repair costs, but they were able to use the 80’000 from his first two months to spend a nice vacation in Costa de Sol.

**Author's Note:**

> Reposting some FFVII fic since I've now completely given up on the Pit.
> 
> Original AN reads:
>
>> Yeah, a bit different from my usual fics, not to mention a lot longer than my one-shots have been in the past, but this just kept going. I couldn't stop it. So I didn't even try. I did take a little liberty with the characters, and Cloud especially is out of my personal characterization for him, but I did it for humor, so please forgive me.  
> 


End file.
